This Nova Online website is the companion to the television broadcast of January 2002 concerning the discovery of gamma ray bursts, the most energetic features so far discovered in our universe subsequent to the Big Bang. While most of it concentrates on the gamma ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum, this website also has a section called "self-guided tour of the electromagnetic spectrum", which provides an excellent, though simple, introduction.

The key sections of this European Space Agency website for schools are those on Envisat, the Earth observation satellite, its instrumentation, applications of its remote sensing, and various images produced by it, together with those dealing with remote sensing and spectral signatures. There are additional resource weblinks, news, and a school network through which one can participate in related projects, post messages on a forum and involve oneself in discussions, and get help.

Here is a host of activities covering physics, biology and chemistry, providing detailed notes and information for both students and teachers. The set of 23 include Young's double-slit experiment; an investigation of infrared radiation; fluorescence; the absorption of ultraviolet radiation by oxygen; the effect of ultraviolet radiation on yeast, DNA and windscreen repair polymers; and diffracting microwaves.

Being a Nasa website, this is geared to astronomy. Within it are sections on the chemical composition of stars, the motion of stars and galaxies via Doppler Shift, how to make a spectrograph, and what's special about x-ray and gamma-ray spectra. Each is brief but has lots of links to a glossary for expansion. More important, there is an excellent section detailing lesson plans on related topics for mathematics and other sciences, which also contains weblinks and other useful references.

Gettysburg College in the US has produced a series of very high-quality, but free to download, investigative programs for teaching and learning in astronomy. Relevant to the electromagnetic spectrum are classification of stellar spectra, the Hubble redshift distance relation, the large-scale structure of the universe and dying stars and the birth of the elements. Just brilliant, as indeed are the others available.

This website is superb. It contains resources related to the techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared and mass spectrometry, including a database of the spectra of 30 or so compounds, a tutorial section explaining the origin of the features in the spectra as they are clicked on, problem-solving activities at different levels involving identifying compounds from their spectra and test data, and three video clips of around five minutes each detailing the commercial apparatus and techniques used. It is downloadable, too.

Take 10 acclaimed and very different authors; ask them to write a collaborative novel, a chapter apiece, and what do you get? The answer, inevitably, is that you get 10 absorbing but very different stories. Click may not be wholly satisfying as a novel in its entirety but, as a study of the characteristics of each writer and the way in which they develop, build and manipulate a story, it's a fascinating read and one that, in the classroom, has as many uses as it has authorial voices. The opening chapter, written by Linda Sue Park, sets the scene: a grandfather, once a famous and charismatic photographer, bequeaths to his granddaughter, Maggie, a set of shells, with instructions that she should return them to their native continents. To his grandson, Jason, he leaves a box of signed photographs. Alongside the sometimes surprising twists and turns taken by the family drama in the stories that follow, there are adventures, war stories, tales of far-off places and even a futuristic science-fiction story. Readers will all have their preferences, offering great possibilities for classroom discussions, while their ideas about how the story might develop at each turn will form stimulating starting points for creative writing lessons.